Carl Sagan Quotes

With science, there is this culture of experimentation, and most of the time, those experiments fail.

In science we have to consider two things: power and circumstance.

I have emphasized experiments more than theory. Of course, we need some theory when thinking of soft matter.

Creativity is essential to particle physics, cosmology, and to mathematics, and to other fields of science, just as it is to its more widely acknowledged beneficiaries - the arts and humanities.

Experimentation is an active science.

Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

Research sometimes feels like an ongoing TV series in which some amazing revelations have already been made, but there are still plenty of cliff-hangers and unresolved plotlines that you want to see resolved. But unlike TV, we have to do the work ourselves to figure out what happens next.

Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment.

Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)

Science is the search for truth.

Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off... All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple.

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer.

Why should there be the method of science? There is not just one way to build a house, or even to grow tomatoes. We should not expect something as motley as the growth of knowledge to be strapped to one methodology.

Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment. Sometimes it is one foot which is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both.

It may be said "In research, if you know what you are doing, then you shouldn't be doing it." In a sense, if the answer turns out to be exactly what you expected, then you have learned nothing new, although you may have had your confidence increased somewhat.

Science demands patience.

Experimenters are the shock troops of science.

Experiment is fundamentally only induced observation.

Experiment is the sole source of truth.

We have relatively little time and a whole lot of curiosity, so the most efficient way to get there is what we do, and that often happens to be some form of science.

Science probes; it does not prove.

In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared.

Without proper experiments I conclude nothing.